The present invention relates to semiconductor fabrication, and more specifically, to reducing the microloading effect realized by a semiconductor device during a reactive ion etching (RIE) process.
The etch rate of silicon during reactive ion etching (RIE) can be affected by local variations in the pattern density, which in turn causes local variations in the etch rate. The local depletion of reactive species that cause the local variations in the pattern density and is typically referred to as the RIE microloading effect.